Change Your Image
mikeborgen
Reviews
Comedian (2002)
A look into the high pressure world of comedy
If you love stand up, or just love funny in general this is a great look into the madness of being a working stand-up comedian.
A prerequisite, you must want to see how the sausage is made and it's not pretty. Watch as even seasoned veterans Jerry Seinfeld struggle to write new material on the Fly and capture lightning in the bottle for unsuspected crowds. Jerry professes it is extremely hard to throw out all of your old materials and start fresh because it's like giving away your superpowers that have worked before.
Upside follows the greats Jerry Seinfeld and Colin Quinn. Downside is an up and coming, struggling comedian Orny Adams who is simply full of himself and thinks he's funny but he's really not pretty hack in fact. Unfortunately, he follows the Dane Cook good looks but does not have the Charisma or sense of humor to match and it frustrates him.
Saving Sakic (2024)
Meh
Unnecessarily long could have been told in 10 minutes and it wasn't that riveting.
If they didn't rope in Harrison Ford into the story it could have been told in five minutes. I could see the pitch now yeah so that's the basic story what else, well Harrison Ford and his money making movie made this possible okay let's milk that for another 30 minutes
Usually these documentaries are fabulous I was expecting a little bit more to the story but it was pretty basic and didn't necessarily need a documentary about it.
I'm all for hockey related docs, just this one seemed like a pretty shallow plot.
Elvis (2022)
Meh. Uncontroversial and woke
The most interesting aspects of Elvis's life were omitted to fit this narrative. Ie; drug use, underage marriage/sex with Precilla, bowling and askking to become self-appointed drug czar to Nixon. Deeply moved by racism and assasination of MLK in the privacy of his own biopic and a mere 2 minutes of screen time for fat/pathetic Elvis. Could have been fat more interesting if approached as an idol fallen from Grace like the "Wrestler," instead I'm left with a superficia, one dimensional character.
Meh,a real missed opportunity. Great performance by Butler though.
Thomas Sowell: Common Sense in a Senseless World, A Personal Exploration by Jason Riley (2021)
Lots of backslapping--not a deep dive.
Not a very well produced documentary. More sound bites then a deep Dive in Sowell's philosophies. I would have rather heard Thomas himself talking about his point of view with in-depth looks a continuation and explanation of his unique beliefs.
The narration and host see more content on sucking up to the man, and explaining how great he was instead of just letting his work speak for itself.
For how brilliant Thomas is, there really isn't that much concrete evidence. Without political bias, Noam Chomsky would eat him alive in debate it seems, because his explanations are much more historical deeper and with longer discussions and every documentary an interview I've seen... Perhaps this was a disservice to Thomas himself but I'm not impressed by the man as I was hoping to be. Yes, he has the courage to punch down and self criticized his own people, but in his own words I'm not hearing any solutions just trade-offs to defend the status quo according to this documentary.
In & of Itself (2020)
A tad pretentious
Well, I know some people will really like this movie but I'm not one of them. The film itself is considered a documentary, but I don't consider it that, but rather a performance art meets Tony Robbins self-help seminar Meets magic show meets The Moth storytellers.
While the Gambler story was entertaining on its own and it was interesting to hear about his lesbian mother and how we dealt with it as a whole I didn't think the whole thing came together, but rather a garbled pretentious collection of stories and self-discovery to make people feel good and cry with a little bit of trickery and slight of hand.
The Cameo of David Blaine and him crying because he called him a brother, and I swear I saw Bill Gates professing himself as a leader and the audience to but that might just be my imagination. These cameos alone I found cheesy and took me out of the film altogether.
I'm not the kind of person that likes to be forced to feel things, and this film felt like it was trying way too hard to be emotional, a little bit heavy-handed for my taste.